


in abyssum irent

by handydandynotebook



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Bonding, Comfort, Crack, Dead Neil Hargrove, Demogorgon - Freeform, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, i cannot emphasize enough that this is crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29312256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handydandynotebook/pseuds/handydandynotebook
Summary: “Look at this mess you made,” she chides gently.Flora clicks, mouth petals quivering without actually opening.“Who’s a messy baby?” Susan coos. “Who’s a messy baby, huh?”Flora draws its hindquarters up so it’s hunched in a crouch, contentedly craning into Susan’s affection.
Relationships: Susan Hargrove & Demogorgon (Stranger Things)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	in abyssum irent

**Author's Note:**

> direct continuation of micis part 3. u don't rly need to read micis for this to make sense tho. all u rly need to know is that a demogorgon whelp imprinted on susan and upon maturity, decapitated neil. 
> 
> so. idrk how the demo's portals work in st canon proper. went ahead with flora being able to make portals bc that's what i'm used to in dbd.

Susan watches as Flora crawls back to Neil’s headless corpse, curled up against the wall. It’s a gruesome sight but she simply cannot pull her eyes away as the creature slashes open her husband’s belly with razored claws. Viscera slides from the gaping aperture in the flesh gone gray, tumbling into Neil’s naked lap in a slippery bundle. Loops of small bowel push through the folds of ripped membrane. 

The innards squelch as Flora chomps through them, repulsive and moist. Flora shreds Neil’s limbs with ease, claws slicing cleanly through sinew and pulp. Its numerous needle teeth scrape against the bone before the flaps of its head close around a good hunk of torso. Susan’s hit with the blood spray as Flora wrenches back in a cacophony of tissue tearing and liquid splattering. 

It devours the hunk of meat as the light flickers above. It keeps going, using its fearsome claws and blooming head to rend Neil into pieces. It gobbles him up hunk by messy hunk and Susan finds herself somewhere in between numb and mesmerized, cannot tear her stare away. 

Eventually Flora finishes, lipless mouth and forelimbs smeared red, blood puddling in the carpet and splashed on Susan’s walls. Flora turns in her direction like it’s waiting for something, head cocking to the side. 

Susan inhales and crawls across the carpet, Neil’s blood trickling into her lashes, tickling against the sensitive flesh of her lips. She reaches out and places a hand on Flora’s head. 

“Look at this mess you made,” she chides gently. 

Flora clicks, mouth petals quivering without actually opening. 

“Who’s a messy baby?” Susan coos. “Who’s a messy baby, huh?” 

Flora draws its hindquarters up so it’s hunched in a crouch, contentedly craning into Susan’s affection. 

“You are! You’re a messy baby, yes you are!” Susan fondly scrubs her hand over her friend’s strange flesh, finds herself laughing as her dead husband’s blood coats her tongue with a copper taste. Her shoulders bounce as the laughs bubble out of her, giddy and effervescent. 

The lights keep flickering. Susan laughs until she cries, tears of joy or tears of relief, perhaps, but certainly not ones of mourning. Flora gently rubs its head along her arm, mouth petals fluttering back just a bit and brushing over her cheek, almost like it’s kissing the welt. 

“Aww. It’s okay, Flora, I’m fine. Momma’s fine.” She kisses her friend right back, lightly skimming her lips over the side of its…face? 

Is it technically a face? Its head is all mouth, otherwise featureless…

Well, Susan doesn’t care if Flora technically has a face or not. Face or no face, Flora protected her. For the first time since the move, Susan actually feels loved. She has found a true friend in the form of this extraterrestrial who showed up in the basement no bigger than a bullfrog and shot up like a sprout. 

Susan gives it one more kiss before rising to her feet, trotting to the kitchen to grab some bleach. Flora follows behind, up on its hind legs and at least a good foot taller than Susan. It’s been primarily bipedal for a few weeks now and at first it was a tad intimidating just how big Flora got, and how fast. 

But Susan no longer feels the least bit intimidated with Flora in tow. She’s in fact bursting with fondness. Her otherworldly friend trails her like a duckling and just sort of hovers as Susan begins to clean the mess in the bedroom. Eventually it must grow bored or otherwise disinterested, because the power goes out and when it comes back on, Flora has disappeared entirely. 

Susan doesn’t worry. She doesn’t know where her friend goes but she knows eventually, it will come back. It always does. 

* * *

Susan conceals the bruise on her cheek with makeup and files a missing person’s report on her husband. 

“He probably left you for someone hotter,” Billy tells her about a week into Neil’s disappearance, fingernails gnawed down to the quick just like her own always were before Flora came along. Billy’s worried about something, maybe about Neil or about what will happen if Neil comes back, possibly some combination or even neither.

In any case, Susan tries not to take it personally. She ignores the comment like she ignores most of his comments like that and doesn’t speak to him again until dinner and then only asks if he’s going to finish the ribs. If he wasn’t she’d give them to Flora but he does and it’s just as well. 

When Billy leaves again and Max goes off to her room, Susan slips down to the basement to find Flora’s already had itself a meal, fresh blood around its closed bud of a mouth. 

“Oh, my messy Flora.” Susan smiles fondly and wets a towel, gently dabbing along the seams of the carnivore’s mouth. 

“Just don’t have any table manners, do you?” she teases. 

She’s getting good enough at reading Flora’s body language to tell it’s feeling playful. It’s in the wiggle of Flora’s frame, the minute flexing of its claws. 

“Okay, we can play.” Susan fetches an old, battered basketball from a storage rack and tosses it Flora’s way. 

It bounces on the floor and Flora’s whole body trembles in anticipation. It pounces after the ball and for awhile Susan just watches, beholding the creature in all its playful glory. In all honesty she’d been horrified by Flora’s appearance initially, as it continued to grow and its tail shrank to nothing while more rows of teeth sprung up in its mouth and its claws only sharpened. Now, as she watches it frolic and beat the ball about almost like a cat with yarn, she finds her friend strangely…beautiful. 

Flora is a beautiful beast and Susan watches it play with this feeling in her chest almost like Max’s very first day of preschool, watching her daughter happily march rubber dinosaurs through the sandbox. 

The fun ends when Flora accidentally pops the ball. It explodes in orange tatters right in the poor thing’s not-face. Flora shrieks in alarm and runs to Susan, everything in the basement rattling under the weight of its thundering steps.

“Oh no, did that startle you?” 

Flora rises onto its hinds and Susan reaches up, gently cupping its head. 

“Aww, I know,” she soothes, stroking her fingers over Flora’s odd skin. “It’s okay. We’ll get you a new one.” 

* * *

Susan gets a second job to compensate for the monetary loss of Neil. She’s been telemarketing at the local insurance office for months but officially gets her license so she can sell as an agent and on the weekends, she works as an associate at the movie theater. 

It’s a freeing experience, truly, to be her own breadwinner. She’d made very little as a telemarketer and it was only a part-time position, just a little something on the side to put extra money in Max’s college fund and frankly to…well, to have somewhere to be. Just to get out of her horrible house. Half the time Neil would find some excuse to funnel the meager paychecks Susan received into his own wants and she always hated it, hated that he always seemed to find a way to extend his financial power over her own personal earnings. 

Selling insurance is not particularly interesting work. Filling popcorn buckets and passing out movie tickets is not particularly engaging. But it is money and it is hers. Just hers. When spring comes around, Susan hopes she’ll have enough to drop the movie theater job and take up beekeeping in its stead. She likes the mechanics of the idea, of being her own boss, having her own honey, having a hive right in the backyard so the bees could pollinate her garden. 

It’s just an idea right now. Time will tell whether or not it’s a feasible one. But it’s a telling thing to have such ideas. Just two months without Neil has done wonders for her mental health. Susan can actually entertain ideas and dreams and plans that don’t center him, things that have nothing at all to do with him. She can live a life that doesn’t revolve around the appeasement and placation of someone who made her feel like less than nothing, not a person but a footstool in the shape of one. 

Max too, is doing better without Neil around. She can bring her friends over and make messes like kids are supposed to make without worrying about screams loud enough to shake the walls. She doesn’t have to listen to Neil rage and rant on his endless list of rantings, pure viper venom in his voice. She can express her interests without being shut down or ridiculed, berated on the basis that girls shouldn’t like or be or want anything other than chapstick and chastity. Susan will never again have to hurry to haul Max off when Neil starts in on Billy. 

And Billy is…well, Susan isn’t the best at reading him. He’s still out whenever he can be. He’s not quite as discreet about the drugs anymore, won’t hide his pinprick pupils behind sunglasses or bathe in body spray to cover up the marijuana. But he doesn’t get into as many fights, Susan doesn’t think, hasn’t seen bruises on his knuckles, hasn’t heard him kicking at the wall or breaking things in his room. Because sometimes it would be that. Susan had listened to Neil dish out discipline enough times to hear the difference between Billy getting hit and Billy doing the hitting. She hasn’t heard either since Flora ate him. 

Neil is out of their lives for good and Susan is forever grateful to Flora. Flora who has yet to leave for more than a few nights at a time. Flora who keeps following her upstairs. It’s a tad concerning. 

Susan doesn’t know what to do about that. It’s fine when Max and Billy aren’t home. On her off days or in between shifts, so long as the kids are out, Susan will gladly snuggle up to catch a soap with Flora on the couch. Perhaps that’s the problem. Susan’s given it too many positive associations with the upstairs. 

On the other hand, maybe her worries are for nought. Because it’s exactly that— Flora follows Susan upstairs. Flora hasn’t shown any interest in Max or Billy. Susan’s never come home to anything that indicates it had been upstairs while she was out. Flora vanishes entirely sometimes, an exit so complete Susan swears it teleports. That sounds like something out of science fiction, but well, Flora is an extraterrestrial. Flora must be an extraterrestrial, there’s simply nothing else it could be. 

The extraterrestrial in the Spielberg movie had special powers too. 

* * *

Susan comes home one Saturday night surprised to see the Camaro in the driveway. Billy isn’t typically here on the weekend. Susan wonders if she should be wary at the change in pattern but then, maybe it’s a good thing. His liver would certainly appreciate a quiet night spent at home. 

Susan gets one foot in the back door and realizes there is nothing quiet about tonight at all. 

“Kill it, Billy, kill it!” Max is yelling at the top of her lungs. 

“I’m trying!” He yells back, just as loud. 

A resounding, high pitched hiss. Oh no. Flora. 

Susan practically vaults herself up the steps and races into the living room. Max is standing in the corner, knuckles gripped bleach white around a baseball bat full of nails. Flora stands at its full height, mouth halfway open and facing Billy. Billy’s swinging at her friend’s head with a twenty pound dumbbell. 

“Stop!” Susan shouts. 

Max’s eyes dart to her. Billy misses. Flora lashes out with a claw, gets his arm. Susan hears the denim tear, watches the strips of sleeve flutter to the floor. Billy’s eyes widen as Flora’s mouth fully blooms and it shrieks right in his face with a force that could shatter the sound barrier, decibels demonic and piercing. Max charges forward, bat readied to swing. 

“No, no, no!” Susan hurries across the carpet, throwing herself between Max and Flora. She hugs her arms around the creature from behind, pressing her cheek into Flora’s back. “We don’t need to bite Billy, it’s okay! It’s okay!” 

Susan feels the tension begin to leak from her friend’s muscles. She hums a lullaby she knows it likes and even more tension trickles away. Flora’s mouth slowly closes. The next sound it makes is a soft, nonaggressive series of chitters. 

“What is that?” Billy gasps. 

“Bayu Bayushki Bayu. It’s Russian, if I recall.” 

“Not the fucking song, Susan! That thing!” He gestures to Flora with the dumbbell and Susan can see her friend didn’t draw any blood. His arm is free of wounds, the jacket was the only causality. 

“It’s…it’s Flora,” Susan says uncertainly. 

“Get away from it, Mom,” Max urges. “It’s dangerous!” 

“Nonsense.” Susan turns her head from one side to the other to peer down at Max, opposite cheek flush to Flora’s flesh. “It isn’t dangerous. It’s not Flora’s fault for being frightened.” 

Max’s jaw drops to the floor. Susan rubs up and down her friend’s long forelimbs. 

“Did that big bully scare you?” she coos into its back. 

Flora quietly chirrs. 

“What the— you’re accusing me!? Of scaring Seven Foot Tons of Teeth right here!?” 

Flora bristles at the hostility. Susan can feel the tension return to its limbs as its attention swings back to Billy. 

“Lower your voice, Flora doesn’t like yelling,” Susan warns softly, continuing to rub its forelimbs up and down. 

Billy stares as if she’s sprouted a second head but refrains from more yelling. From speaking at all. Max also falls silent. 

Susan resumes humming into her friend’s unusual flesh, doesn’t stop until she feels confident in its calmness. When she relaxes her embrace she does so slowly. Flora turns toward her, the very tips of its mouth petals soundlessly rippling. 

“I’m sorry they gave you a fright, I’m sure you just wanted to say hello.” 

“It’s not friendly, Mom,” Max pipes in, still gripping that bat like her life depends on it. “It eats meat.” 

“Friendliness and carnivorous appetites are not mutually exclusive,” Susan replies calmly, petting Flora’s head. “Oh, I suppose I should’ve told you about Flora sooner. For that, I apologize, I just didn’t know how.” 

“Sooner?” Max echoes. “Wait, what— oh my god! This is why the power’s been flickering nonstop.” 

“Yes.” Susan looks around Flora to blink at her daughter, perplexed. “How did you know that?” 

Susan herself still doesn’t understand how or why Flora effects the electricity. She only knows it must be Flora upon eliminating other factors. 

“Uhh…I can’t really say…I mean, actually, I totally just guessed about the power thing.” 

Susan gives her a skeptical look but before she can inquire further, Billy interrupts. 

“How long have you been keeping a monster for a pet?” he demands, incredulous. 

“Flora isn’t a monster. I know its appearance takes a bit of getting used to, but I assure you, it’s very sweet.” 

Flora clicks as though in agreement. 

“Yes!” Susan burbles pleasantly. “You’re a sweet baby, yes you are!” 

Flora clicks again and draws Susan to its body like it did the day it defended her from Neil. It curls inward and lightly rests its head atop Susan’s. 

“Mom,” Max sputters, panicky, hands flexing on the bat. 

“Don’t!” Susan frees an arm, stretches it out in a halting motion. “It’s okay, Max. Flora’s just being affectionate. I think it senses my nerves.” 

Max and Billy exchange quick looks. 

“How long?” he asks again. 

Susan chews the inside of her cheek but dutifully answers. “About three months.” 

“So that’s almost as long as Neil…oh.” Max’s eyes flash with realization. “Oh!” 

Susan warily glances to Billy. 

“Jesus. I’m not dealing with this sober.” Billy starts toward the kitchen, raking a hand through his hair. He pauses, clenching the curls in a fist. “Is that thing gonna swipe at me again if I try to walk around it?” 

“No, Flora’s much calmer now.” 

Billy nods and shuffles around the two of them, padding into the kitchen. Susan hears the fridge open, the pop of a tab when he grabs a beer can. Max sidles up, slowly lowering the bat to her side. 

“This one…it’s really friendly?” 

“Oh, yes. Friendly, playful, very gentle. I feel safer with Flora than I’ve felt in years.” Susan freezes as she realizes the words that have just left her lips, heart jolting in her chest. She’s immediately awash with shame and discomfort. It’s just such a horrible thing to say to her daughter, she mentally scolds herself for letting it slip. 

Max’s expression doesn’t indicate surprise. She looks a bit sad for a moment, blinks it away as one hand releases the bat. She tentatively reaches out, a glint of curiosity in her gaze. 

“Go on, Flora,” Susan encourages, giving her friend’s chest a ginger pat. “Show Max you’re not so scary.” 

They don’t share the same language so Susan isn’t exactly sure what makes it understand. Something or other must though. Perhaps it’s the closeness, their hearts thudding near flush together, that allows the creature to correctly draw the meaning from words it surely doesn’t know. Perhaps it’s the creature’s own curiosity as it feels Max’s arm move through the air that prompts it to reciprocate. 

Flora uncurls a forelimb from Susan’s frame and stretches out, harmlessly grazing a gentle claw over the back of her daughter’s hand. Max’s face twitches and the shakiest of smiles unfurls upon her lips.

**Author's Note:**

> in the og ending flora also killed billy and max, perceiving the former as a threat and the latter as competition for susan's attention/affection. but that would've been a big ol' bummer so here's the good end instead.
> 
> also, um the days of growth collection!!! that demogorgon skin!! it's so disgusting, I LOVE IT!!! i huntress main first and foremost, but i'm defo gonna be demo main for a hot min when i get that fucking gorgeously repulsive skin. i've played as nancy all of twice but her outfit is oddly cute? steve...mm. well. anyway. 
> 
> but damn, that demogorgon skin. this is completely irrelevant to the fic, i'm so sorry, i'm just. i was so excited when i saw that trailer!!! and i was planning on posting this particular fic today anyway and then saw that, whaaat are the odds. and i loved the lil demo animation at the end too, like, aww, that's my gross shrieking bby. <3


End file.
